I made some more modifications to the forum code. This time, I changed it so that I am the only one who can delete posts. I then wrote a mod that would allow me to specify a maximum number of lines for user signatures. I don't know about you, but it just annoys me when people make their signatures longer than the typical message. So for right now, I set a maximum of four lines.

Okay, I brush my teeth twice a day, use Listerine mouthwash, and at night I even pick and floss... yet yesterday, there I lay, with my head back and a drill in my mouth. I couldn't feel the right side of my mouth for like the next 5 hours, and when the feeling did come back, my jaw still ached for the rest of the night. What else am I supposed to do in order to keep the cavities at bay, sand blast the frillin' things?! (Yes, I said "frillin'", I'm a Farscape fan, now let's just move on.) Well, we've just started trying a new mouthwash, ACT, before bedtime while still using Listerine in the mornings. ACT is different as it's supposed to coat your teeth to help protect them, rather than just acid-burning everything in your mouth like Listerine.

Next up, I have some very exciting news. I'm not kidding here, this is really extreme, so if you have a weak stomach or faint easily, then you better stop reading now. Alright, you've all been warned, now prepare yourself... I'm going to be a dad! Can you believe it?! I'm so excited! I guess it's time to put away all my childish toys... cause, you know, I don't want them all slobbered on and everything. Treeses did a home test on the 27th, and the next day she went to the doctor and got it confirmed. She is five weeks pregnant, which would make her due sometime around the end of December. They took her off the blood thinner medication, and put her on shots instead. Twice a day in the stomach... yeah, she's real happy about that one.

We're going to look into buying a new SUV soon. This is something we were considering anyway, so I think now we better get to it. We're interested in getting rid of our old 2-seater Ford Bronco and upgrading to the 2006 Toyota Highlander, the new gas/electric hybrid SUV that's being released in June. Of course, we still need to go test drive the thing and make sure we actually like it. We also need to start cleaning out one of the spare bedrooms. It'll probably be mine, since we'd just need to get rid of the old entertainment center, futon, and desk. Then there's the whole baby-proofing the house thing... I'm sure that's gonna be a lot of fun.

Monday, April 25, 2005

Modified the forum to display any action a moderator takes on a post. This is shown right below the post itself as well as on a summary page. I also modified the forum so that nobody can delete threads except me, and nobody can delete posts except me and the post's creator. Finally, I added code to remove the session ID from urls that are pasted into messages.

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Made a modification to the forum that displays a different icon next to private messages that have been replied to. Someone recently sent a message telling me about this J-Pop band called "Titan Go King's" that is currently on a US tour, so I visited their website (http://www.sister.co.jp/Titan/index_e.html) and checked out some of their audio and video clips, probably the best of which was their video, "A Volume of Titan Go King's". I tried contacting their manager to find out how they came up with their band name, but haven't heard anything yet. Must be busy with the whole tour thing. Too bad they won't come to my town, as I think going to see them would really make for a fun night out.

If you've read the previous updates for this month, then you should recall the name Jacobi Knight. Well, after submitting several complaints about this jerk to Yahoo, they finally deleted his account. And if Yahoo does it anything like the way Hotmail does it, then he would have received no warning and all emails he had stored on that account are now gone. Of course, when Hotmail did that to me, I already had all my messages cached locally because I used the Outlook Express integration, which I had up and running all day. Lucky me!

Added anime profiles for Angel Blade and Teacher's Pet. Added a feature to the forum which will automatically delete all user accounts that meet certain conditions after a certain number of days. For the conditions, I set it to delete all accounts that have not been activated after 20 days, and all accounts where the user has not visited the forum in 365 days. I also added a mod that will allow moderators to merge topics, for all those people out there who accidently hit "New Topic" instead of reply. Also to help with that, I removed the "New Topic" button from the bottom of threads. It's still there at the top, and of course it's still on the list of threads.

Now, I mentioned this in the forum, but I'll mention it here as well. It is very likely that any messages you sent me between Tuesday the 5th and Friday the 9th were bounced back to you. This is due to Hotmail deleting my account after a disgruntled forum user by the name of Jacobi Knight (jacobi_knight@yahoo.com) submitted some accusation against me.

Now, this is not entirely his fault, as Hotmail should have been more responsible and checked into it better. They didn't even contact me prior to deleting my account! Still, I would have to say it is mostly his fault, so please feel free to express your gratitude. Here's what happened....

Jacobi Knight created an account on the forum, posted a SPAM message, and never came back. Later on, somebody tried to send him a private message through the forums, which will send out an automatic email notification to the recipient, unless the recipient disabled that option, which he didn't. He responded to this email with the word "unsubscribe". Because that e-mail was not part of some mailing list, I replied telling him about the setting I just mentioned and how to disable it.

He then replied with an extremely vulgar email saying he forgot his username. So I replied telling him how to recover his username. He replied with an even more vulgar message about nothing, just a message for the sake of cussing me out. I replied telling him that because he had been so polite, I would start e-mailing him friendly reminders to log in and delete his account. I also mentioned that I might even add a feature to the forum software which would automatically email him every day until he logged in and deleted his account.

And that's when Hotmail disabled my account. For everyone who sent messages prior to the 5th, don't worry, they're all safe. Now I am using my absoluteanime.com mail account, which I was eventually going to switch over to anyway. Not only is it more reliable than Hotmail, but if there's any kind of problem I can just make a phone call, I don't have to wade through Microsoft's technical support just to end up getting a useless response. So I guess you could say that Jacobi actually did me a favor. You can even go ahead and thank him for me if you want. His email address is jacobi_knight@yahoo.com.

Okay, since I'm now going with my absoluteanime IMAP account, I decided to see if I could find a better e-mail program than Outlook Express for handling IMAP accounts. I first tried Opera's mail program, and just really didn't like it. I know it supposed to be revolutionary and takes getting used to, and I read through all the documentation and tutorials about adjusting to it's format, but I still just didn't like it. I don't need revolutionary. The way I've handled my e-mail up until now has worked good for me, so I have no desire to change that.

So the next mail client I tried was Mozilla's Thunderbird. On first glance, this is very similar to Outlook Express, but on second glance, it is WAY better. It allows much more built in customization, plus it has a lot of extended features that can be downloaded and installed very easily. The one thing it has that I was really looking for is filters, which Outlook Express has, but only for POP3 accounts, not for IMAP for some weird reason. Another feature it has that Outlook Express lacks is the ability to automatically move messages into a Trash folder instead of just marking them deleted. Oh yeah, and Outlook Express has a new-mail- notification bug with IMAP accounts, where it will continually alert you that you have new mail when you really don't. Thunderbird doesn't have this bug.

Converting from Outlook Express to Thunderbird was completely painless. Thunderbird flawlessly imported all of the accounts I had set up under Outlook Express, including their settings, all their folders, messages, and contacts. After I imported and got it set up like I wanted, I went out and found some extensions to install. One that I really liked is the minimize-to-system-tray, where you right-click on the minimize button and instead of minimizing to the task bar it will minimize to the system tray. Another extension I added was one for signatures, so I could have a few different signatures (you know, like "Thanks" and "Please read the Frequently Asked Questions"). Then I also did one that will underline misspelled words as you're composing a message, similar to the feature in Microsoft Word.

I dug around and found a few more archived versions of this site from years past, so I took some screenshots and posted them with the others on the About This Website page.

Saturday, April 2, 2005

I got my Astro Boy 2003 Remake DVD box set! This has really been given the "collector's edition" treatment for it's DVD release. Although it doesn't have a lot of extra features, it doesn't need to, because this set is packed! Every episode has been jammed into the 5 disc boxed set, including 29 episodes that haven't even been shown on TV yet, and a feature about the remaking of Astro Boy. It all totals to about 17 hours, and at an amazing price.... about $40! And that's at the official Sony Store, it's even less at Amazon.com. Compare that to the Transformers: Season 1 box set which is about 8 hours for about $45, or the Trigun box set which is almost 11 hours for about $150. Getting the picture? The only thing it's really lacking is a Japanese language track, but still, this is so worth it.

Okay, so I hope everybody made it through April Fool's Day okay. I saw someone posted a pretty good joke announcement on the forum, about how the site would be closing because of creative differences between myself and I. Glad somebody did one, I would have liked to but I was up late the previous night working on our April Fool's joke pages for the Working Designs website. It was a play off of a joke done by IREM on their website about a new game system called EXiDNA.

I had my first real experience with a chiropractor on Monday. My wife brought me in with her to one of her appointments as she wanted to have the guy to check me out. So he did, and then he made my spine go 'p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-op'. It didn't hurt or anything, nor did it feel good like so many people exclaim. The only thing I did notice afterwards was that it actually felt natural to stand up straight, something I hadn't been accustomed to for a long time.

Friday, April 1, 2005

Added an anime profile for the new Ah! My Goddess TV series. Decided to rename the Recent Updates page to Latest News & Updates, seeing as how I usually write about more than just site updates.